Indian women's team continued with their winning streak, they won fourth straight match in the ongoing ICC women's world cup, 2017. They defeated Sri Lanka by 16 runs to move closer to confirm a semi final berth in the tournament. Sri Lankan middle order gave some worries to Indian team chasing their score of 232 runs but Indian side held onto their nerves to take the match away.
India won the toss and elected to bat first. Once again the star southpaw Samriti Mandhana failed to give the good start and got out for just 8 runs. India soon lost the other opener P Raut making 16 runs on the team score of 38 runs in the 11th over. Indian batswomen stabled things after two early wickets. Captain Mitali Raj and Deepti Sharma both played well and both reached to their fifties.
Partnership of 118 runs between Mitali and Deepti helped India score 232/8 from their 40 overs. |
Sri Lanka started the chase very cautiously but lost the first wicket for just 17 runs. Then two srilankan batswomen present on the crease starting playing the balls just to avoid getting out and didn't show intent to score runs. They were playing just to save the wickets. Second wicket finally fell in 18th over for 57 runs. Soon third wicket fell on the score of 70 runs. Sriwardene played a handy knock of 37 runs before getting out in the 39th over and it seemed all over for Sri Lanka with over 100 runs to get from just 11 overs. They lost few more wickets in the context before P Weerakkody joined wicketkeeper Surangika who was on the crease playing her shots without really getting affected by the loss of partners at other end. Weerakkody also started playing her shots and both the batswomen upped the anty and started scoring at fast rate and got closer to the target. Surangika eventually got out for well made 61 runs ending hopes of Sri Lankan team to chase down the target. Weerakkody remained unbeaten for 21 runs of just 17 balls but couldn't take her team past the par score and Indian team held Sri Lanka for 216/7 from their 50 overs winning the match by 16 runs. Goswami and P Yadav picked 2 wickets each, Sharma and Bisht scalped 1 each. Sri Lankan middle order and lower order did really well to get that close of the target but India eventually pulled the victory into their bag. India has now won all four matches in the league stage and is at second position in the league table with 8 points with Australia also winning the same number of matches but with a better net run rate sits at the top of the table. It would be safe to say that India has almost reached the semifinals after the win in today's match.
Brief Score :
India 232/8 50 overs, Deepti 78(110), S Weerakkody 28/3
Sri Lanka 216/7 50 overs, Manodara 61(75), Yadav 23/2
- Navdeep Sharma
Superb price of write up Navdeep !!! And superb performance India W 😊👍
ReplyDeleteThank you for the appreciation. Yes India is playing strongly and is now being considered as favourites to win the world cup.
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